Case Number 25654: Small Claims Court

Vito

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All Rise...

By the grace of God, Judge P.S. Colbert survived the Reagan administration.

The Charge

"In the late '60s, I would rant and rave and complain and piss about the way
gay people were treated in society. They were willing to pay exorbitant prices
for watered-down drinks in vice-cop ridden bars. And be arrested and suffer
through raids and exposure. That as far as they were concerned, this was their
lot. And I couldn't understand that, you know? I mean, "When do you people get
angry?" was my attitude."—Vito Russo

The Case

1969 is the perfect year for thumbnail historians to put hippie
counterculture into perspective. In August, the movement reached its zenith at
Max Yasgur's farm in upstate New York, during three days of peace, love, and mud
bathing, better known as the Woodstock Music Festival. In December, the movement
officially died after a day of incessant violence, capped by the murder of
eighteen year old Meredith Hunter, stabbed and beaten to death by a mob of
Hell's Angels, who were ostensibly employed as unpaid bodyguards for a Rolling
Stones concert at Altamont speedway, just outside of San Francisco.

Ironically, the "gay community" was born that same year, after a violent
confrontation. In the early morning hours of June 28th, a police raid of the
Stonewall Inn (a Greenwich Village bar with a large gay, transgender, and
crossdressing clientele), took an unexpected turn when those rousted violently
resisted. It was the first blow to the system that oppressed them (codified by
the American Psychiatric Association, which listed "Homosexuality" in its
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1973), and a first
step in the long, continuing march towards equal rights.

"When Stonewall happened, I witnessed it, but I didn't take part in it,"
Russo recalled. "I remember sitting in a tree in the park and watching all this
going on. It didn't do anything but scare me. I just thought that these were a
bunch of crazy queens, and that they were going to get us all into a lot of
trouble and that they should go home. None of this struck me in any way as
political."

It wasn't until March, 1970—following the raid of another New York gay
bar that inadvertently lead to one detainee death—that Russo got his
political awakening. From there on, he steamed ahead until his untimely death in
1990 from AIDS-related causes, at the age of forty-four.

But the HBO Documentary Vito isn't the story of a radical, or even a
political activist; it's the story of a man, much loved and admired by those who
knew him. More importantly, it's a wonderfully illustrative explanation of
why.

True, Russo became an activist, and most likely was called a "radical" in
his time, but only because of his simple message: he was here, he was queer, and
people should be used to it. After all, he reasoned, it's not as if
Homosexuality was some craze that sprung up suddenly, like Beatlemania, or
Mutton-chop sideburns, right?

"I never bought it, not for one single, solitary second," Russo said. "I
don't know how I escaped it. I don't know what was different about the way I was
raised or the way I reacted, But I never once, not for a second, believed that
it was wrong to be gay, that it was a sin, that homosexuality was evil."

"I always knew they were full of shit and that I was right and that there
was nothing wrong with this. 'Cause something this natural couldn't be
wrong."

By drawing on his experience as a film buff, Russo made his point with the
pioneering tome "Celluloid Closet," which paraded example after example of gay,
lesbian and bisexual portrayals in world cinema, both obscure and mainstream
(one blatant example comes from Wings,
the very first Oscar-winning Best Picture), before the advent of the
growth-stunting, all pervasive "Hays Code," which ruled American studio product
with a neutering iron fist for nearly four decades before its official repeal in
1968, when it was replaced the MPAA ratings system, still in place today.

The success of this book made Russo a household name (in the gay and
film-obsessed communities, at least) and in addition to establishing himself as
a leading editorial writer, he broke new ground yet again by developing and
hosting "Our Time," a New York based current-events series covering the depth
and breadth of the gay community, in the first days of a new phenomenon known as
cable television.

An activist? Certainly. But whereas the term has come to symbolize
Propagandists and law-breaking for many, Russo was an activist in the purest
form of the word; a vigorous advocate for his cause—one who shunned
violence and intimidation, preferring logic and reason in his appeal for that
most American of core values: social justice.

First Run Features does more than mere justice to this DVD release with a
flawless 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation and equally commendable audio
track (whether you choose the 5.1 surround or 2.0 stereo option). Speaking of
options, one can choose to employ the English closed-captioning and/or a
commentary track, featuring a round table of interviewees from the film, and led
by Producer/Director Jeffrey Schwarz (Spine
Tingler! The William Castle Story). Additionally, there are a number of
worthwhile extras, including Interview Outtakes, and excerpts from Vito Russo's
"Our Time" series, featuring appearances from Harvey Fierstein, Larry Kramer,
and Lily Tomlin, among others.

What's a man now? What's a man mean? Is he rough or is he
rugged? Is he cultural and clean? Now it's all changed it's
got to change more 'cause we think it's getting better but nobody's
really sure… and so it goes, go round again but now and then
we wonder who the real men are? —Joe Jackson